Consumerist
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video
How To Choose The Best Tires
The Consumer Reports Cars blog has posted a video on how to choose the best tires for your car. Here's one interesting trick we learned from the clip: how to measure tire tread depth using coins. More » -
A+++ would buy from again
Schwarzenegger Asked To Close Prostitution Ratings Website
At Punternet.com you can rate UK prostitutes, find out about British massage parlors, and participate in a bulletin board about all things prostitutey. ("Punter" = "john" in British slang.) Yesterday a British government minister asked Arnold Schwarzenegger to shut it down, because although it concerns the British sex industry—where prostitution isn't illegal—it's based in California. More » -
ratings
Study Rates Cell Phones By Radiation Emitted
The jury is still out on whether cell-phone radiation is something consumers should worry about. Scientists disagree on whether the low levels emitted are enough to cause brain tumors or other health problems in the long-term. Nevertheless, the Environmental Working Group has analyzed radiation emissions from 1,268 cell phones to see how the levels stand up against government standards. More » -
rankings
Find Out What You Can Expect Before You Call Customer Service
The website Customer Service Scorecard ranks the CSR experience for all sorts of companies, from hotels to appliances to telecoms. They've rated 128 so far, and here's their top five. Do you agree? More » -
Sustainability Index
Walmart To Rate Product Sustainability
Walmart is developing a universal rating system to help consumers determine which products are truly sustainable. The rating system would scrutinize a product's entire life-cycle by focusing on broad factors, rather than the usual marketing gibberish that extolls isolated virtues. So why is Walmart, of all companies, deciding which products are environmentally sound? More » -
bribery
This Burger King Must Look Awesome To The Corporate Office
If we worked in fast food, we'd want to work at this Burger King, because you don't have to provide good service to score a perfect survey. You just have to give away food! Now take your free Whopper and get the hell out of here! More »
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tv
CBS Is Counting On Leno To Fail In Prime Time
You know how much it sucks to lose a $5 bill, right? Well, times that by 11 million and you get an idea of how CBS president and CEO Les Moonves felt during the first quarter of the year, when his company lost $55.3 million. More » -
video games
California's Anti-Violence Video Game Law Thrown Out
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a 2005 California law that prohibited the sale or rental of violent video games to minors is unconstitutional, saying that the "lawmakers failed to produce evidence that violent video games cause psychological or neurological harm to children," and that there were other ways to deal with access to violent games, including the current voluntary rating system, public campaigns to educate parents, and parental controls. More » -
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how to
"Star Raids" Thrash Product Ratings, Get Company's Attention
Add this to the Consumerist toolbelt: Star Raids. If a company is pissing off a bunch of customers and refuses to change some aspect of their product, some consumers are finding it effective to band together and thrash the product's rating. An avalanche of "zero" ratings can make a ratings score plummet, and turn away potential customers. The fall-off in sales will definitely grab their attention.
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NWV Direct
NWV Direct Caught Pulling Bait And Switch, Tries To Backpedal
Joshua caught New World Video Direct trying to pull a bait and switch on him with a recent order, so he canceled it and gave them a bad review on resellerratings.com. They contacted him to ask if he'd remove the rating. Joshua wrote back to decline, but he reminded them that it's actually pretty simple to develop a decent reputation as retailer: "If you want to have anyone trust you as a business you have to only list items you plan to sell for the price you plan to sell them at." More » -
spore
Amazon Pulls Negative Reviews Of 'Spore,' Then Reinstates Them
Earlier today, about 2200 reviews of the game Spore disappeared from the product page on Amazon.com, almost all of them negative. Did Amazon censor the reviews because of their anti-DRM nature? Amazon says no, that it was a technical glitch, and they restored the reviews by the end of today. An Amazon spokesperson told Ars Technica, "Amazon doesn't censor or edit customer reviews based [on their content] and we'd only remove a review if it fell outside our guidelines." Spore's rating is back to a single star, and it's #5 on Amazon's video games chart. More » -
ticketsmyway
BBB Warns Consumers: Stay Away From TicketsMyWay
The complaints about TicketsMyWay—the Las Vegas-based ticket broker that doesn't actually deliver the tickets it sells, then threatens you with litigation or fines if you attempt to get your money back—have reached a high enough level to earn a Consumer Alert from the Better Business Bureau: More » -
expedia
Expedia's "New York From $58 A Night" Offer Is Bunk (Beds)
Expedia says they can get you room and board in NYC for $58 a night. Amy at NewYorkology looked into what such a low, low price actually gets you, and it's not pretty: think hostels, co-ed group rooms, mice, bunk beds, and generally dirty environments. If you're undaunted by college-lifestyle travel, Amy points out that there's one cheap hostel listed that has some good reviews, but since we're talking about ultra-budget hostels here, a good review actually includes the phrase, "best of all NO ROACHES!!!" More » -
grand theft auto iv
Activist Who Once Called Video Games "Killographic" Praises The ESRB Grand Theft Auto Rating, Boos Proposed $5,000 Fine
Phil Villarreal of the Arizona Daily Star has located a more reasonable voice to weigh in on the GTAIV controversy in (surprisingly enough) National Institute on Media and the Family founder, David Walsh. Walsh has been praising the ESRB for its "improved enforcement of not selling M-rated games to kids,” and says he trusts the ESRB's "M" rating for Grand Theft Auto IV. More » -
credit reports
This Is Why You Don't Use FreeCreditReport.com
Jesus from South Texas signed up for credit monitoring at the notoriously scammy FreeCreditReport.com. He never received the confirmation email and wasn't able to access his account, so he never used it, but forgot to call to cancel it. After three months he realized he was being charged $15 a month as per their terms of service, so he went to their site to retrieve his login credentials and was told the account didn't exist. After that, it took him 4 calls to get the account canceled, and they would only refund him for one month of service. One of their CSRs tried to scare Jesus into keeping the account open because there had been some "suspicious activity" in his credit history that he'd be wise to monitor. Then they told him there is no phone number or email for their "customer satisfaction department"—it can only be reached through snail mail. More » -
id theft
Chart: "10 Largest Data Breaches Since 2000"
The info-loving people at Flowing Data pulled the figures on data breaches (available at Attrition.org) and created a chart showing the top 10 biggest breaches in the past eight years. The most disturbing trend, which probably will surprise few Consumerist readers, is that the breaches are increasing in frequency. More » -
ratings
America's Test Kitchen Picks The Best Commuter Mugs
While watching TV yesterday and moaning about how lazy we are, we saw a review of commuter mugs (free registration required) on "America's Test Kitchen": "We ordered 11 mugs of different materials, shapes, and sipping structures and organized a battery of tests designed to define the ideal mug, which left us feeling a little like test drivers as we careened around corners trying to spill the coffee or dislodge the mugs." (Yes, they like the royal "we" too!) See their testing criteria, as well as their top two picks, bottom rung losers, and oddball favorite after the jump. More » -
product testing
Air Purifiers That Work, And Ones That Don't
Consumer Reports tested 40 air purifiers by locking them in a closed room and filling it with smoke and dust—in other words, they recreated this writer's childhood Christmases when Granny would visit with her angry poodle. Here are Consumer Reports' selection of the best and worst devices. More »
ratings
New York, 4:21 PM
Sat Nov 14
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